Ecosystem Management

Ecosystem Management PDF

Author: Gary Meffe

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2012-08-31

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1597267899

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Today's natural resource managers must be able to navigate among the complicated interactions and conflicting interests of diverse stakeholders and decisionmakers. Technical and scientific knowledge, though necessary, are not sufficient. Science is merely one component in a multifaceted world of decision making. And while the demands of resource management have changed greatly, natural resource education and textbooks have not. Until now. Ecosystem Management represents a different kind of textbook for a different kind of course. It offers a new and exciting approach that engages students in active problem solving by using detailed landscape scenarios that reflect the complex issues and conflicting interests that face today's resource managers and scientists. Focusing on the application of the sciences of ecology and conservation biology to real-world concerns, it emphasizes the intricate ecological, socioeconomic, and institutional matrix in which natural resource management functions, and illustrates how to be more effective in that challenging arena. Each chapter is rich with exercises to help facilitate problem-based learning. The main text is supplemented by boxes and figures that provide examples, perspectives, definitions, summaries, and learning tools, along with a variety of essays written by practitioners with on-the-ground experience in applying the principles of ecosystem management. Accompanying the textbook is an instructor's manual that provides a detailed overview of the book and specific guidance on designing a course around it. Ecosystem Management grew out of a training course developed and presented by the authors for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at its National Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. In 20 offerings to more than 600 natural resource professionals, the authors learned a great deal about what is needed to function successfully as a professional resource manager. The book offers important insights and a unique perspective dervied from that invaluable experience.

Machine Learning for Ecology and Sustainable Natural Resource Management

Machine Learning for Ecology and Sustainable Natural Resource Management PDF

Author: Grant Humphries

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-11-05

Total Pages: 441

ISBN-13: 3319969781

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Ecologists and natural resource managers are charged with making complex management decisions in the face of a rapidly changing environment resulting from climate change, energy development, urban sprawl, invasive species and globalization. Advances in Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, digitization, online data availability, historic legacy datasets, remote sensors and the ability to collect data on animal movements via satellite and GPS have given rise to large, highly complex datasets. These datasets could be utilized for making critical management decisions, but are often “messy” and difficult to interpret. Basic artificial intelligence algorithms (i.e., machine learning) are powerful tools that are shaping the world and must be taken advantage of in the life sciences. In ecology, machine learning algorithms are critical to helping resource managers synthesize information to better understand complex ecological systems. Machine Learning has a wide variety of powerful applications, with three general uses that are of particular interest to ecologists: (1) data exploration to gain system knowledge and generate new hypotheses, (2) predicting ecological patterns in space and time, and (3) pattern recognition for ecological sampling. Machine learning can be used to make predictive assessments even when relationships between variables are poorly understood. When traditional techniques fail to capture the relationship between variables, effective use of machine learning can unearth and capture previously unattainable insights into an ecosystem's complexity. Currently, many ecologists do not utilize machine learning as a part of the scientific process. This volume highlights how machine learning techniques can complement the traditional methodologies currently applied in this field.

Natural Resource Management Reimagined

Natural Resource Management Reimagined PDF

Author: Robert G. Woodmansee

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-03-11

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 1108497551

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Brings scientists, policy makers, land and water managers and citizen stakeholders together to resolve natural resource and environmental problems.

Sacred Ecology

Sacred Ecology PDF

Author: Fikret Berkes

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-03-29

Total Pages: 563

ISBN-13: 1136341722

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Sacred Ecology examines bodies of knowledge held by indigenous and other rural peoples around the world, and asks how we can learn from this knowledge and ways of knowing. Berkes explores the importance of local and indigenous knowledge as a complement to scientific ecology, and its cultural and political significance for indigenous groups themselves. This third edition further develops the point that traditional knowledge as process, rather than as content, is what we should be examining. It has been updated with about 150 new references, and includes an extensive list of web resources through which instructors can access additional material and further illustrate many of the topics and themes in the book. Winner of the Ecological Society of America's 2014 Sustainability Science Award.

Natural Resource Management Reimagined

Natural Resource Management Reimagined PDF

Author: Robert G. Woodmansee

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-03-11

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 1108750044

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The Systems Ecology Paradigm (SEP) incorporates humans as integral parts of ecosystems and emphasizes issues that have significant societal relevance such as grazing land, forestland, and agricultural ecosystem management, biodiversity and global change impacts. Accomplishing this societally relevant research requires cutting-edge basic and applied research. This book focuses on environmental and natural resource challenges confronting local to global societies for which the SEP methodology must be utilized for resolution. Key elements of SEP are a holistic perspective of ecological/social systems, systems thinking, and the ecosystem approach applied to real world, complex environmental and natural resource problems. The SEP and ecosystem approaches force scientific emphasis to be placed on collaborations with social scientists and behavioral, learning, and marketing professionals. The SEP has given environmental scientists, decision makers, citizen stakeholders, and land and water managers a powerful set of tools to analyse, integrate knowledge, and propose adoption of solutions to important local to global problems.

Ecology and Natural Resource Management

Ecology and Natural Resource Management PDF

Author: William E. Grant

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 1997-03-05

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9780471137863

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This book explores the theory and methods of systems analysis and computer modeling as applied to problems in ecology and natural resource management. It reflects the problems and conflicts between competing uses of limited space and the need for quantitative predictors of the outcome of various management strategies.

Sustainable Natural Resource Management

Sustainable Natural Resource Management PDF

Author: Daniel R. Lynch

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2009-03-02

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0521899729

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Natural resources support all human productivity. The sustainable management of natural resources is among the preeminent problems of the current century. Sustainability and the implied professional responsibility start here. This book uses applied mathematics familiar to undergraduate engineers and scientists to examine natural resource management and its role in framing sustainability. Renewable and nonrenewable resources are covered, along with living and sterile resources. Examples and applications are drawn from petroleum, fisheries, and water resources. Each chapter contains problems illustrating the material. Simple programs in commonly available packages (Excel, MATLAB) support the text. The material is a natural prelude to more advanced study in ecology, conservation, and population dynamics, as well as engineering and science. The mathematical description is kept within what an undergraduate student in the sciences or engineering would normally be expected to master for natural systems. The purpose is to allow students to confront natural resource problems early in their preparation.

Natural Resource Management: Ecological Perspectives

Natural Resource Management: Ecological Perspectives PDF

Author: Rajinder Peshin

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-03-21

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 3319997688

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This book is an outcome of the keynote/lead papers presented by the experts from different disciplines in the Indian Ecological Society International Conference 2016 on “Natural Resource Management: Ecological Perspectives”, organized at the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Jammu, India. The book captures the essence of natural resource management from the intra and interdisciplinary perspectives of agricultural sciences (entomology, plant pathology, plant breeding and genetics, agronomy and soil sciences), social sciences (resource economics, agricultural extension education), medical sciences, and environmental sciences to stimulate discussion on the ecological perspectives of natural resource management. Wide-ranging topics on land and water resources, biodiversity, integrated farming system, role of microbes in agriculture, climate change and its impact on human health and crop pests, exploiting chemical ecology for pest management, human disease-causing pesticides, beneficial insects like lac insects, integrated pest management, resistance management in insect pests and Bt cotton , and diffusion and adoption of ecologically sustainable technologies at individual and organizational level are covered in the book.. The book will serve the professionals, researchers, academia, government, industry and students.

Integrating Landscape Ecology Into Natural Resource Management

Integrating Landscape Ecology Into Natural Resource Management PDF

Author: Jianguo Liu

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2002-08

Total Pages: 520

ISBN-13: 9780521784337

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The rapidly increasing global population has dramatically increased the demands for natural resources and has caused significant changes in quantity and quality of natural resources. To achieve sustainable resource management, it is essential to obtain insightful guidance from emerging disciplines such as landscape ecology. This text addresses the links between landscape ecology and natural resource management. These links are discussed in the context of various landscape types, a diverse set of resources and a wide range of management issues. A large number of landscape ecology concepts, principles and methods are introduced. Critical reviews of past management practices and a number of case studies are presented. This text provides many guidelines for managing natural resources from a landscape perspective and offers useful suggestions for landscape ecologists to carry out research relevant to natural resource management. In addition, it will be an ideal supplemental text for graduate and advanced undergraduate ecology courses.